FALL RIVER — Struggling Samuel Watson Elementary School is one of six underperforming urban schools in Massachusetts that will receive a portion of $9 million in federal aid aimed at accelerating school turnaround efforts.

Watson will receive $1.3 million toward implementing a school transformation model, according to a release from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on Thursday. Other grant recipients include New Bedford High School, as well as schools in Boston and Springfield.

Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown said the grant, which will be implemented over three years, will be used to build teacher capacity around early literacy and math skills, as well as implementing student socio-emotional support systems at the school.

The award comes a few months after the district submitted to DESE a turnaround plan for Watson, which was designated a Level 4 school last September.

Mayo-Brown said she expects to hear soon from DESE if that plan has received final approval.

“Part of the turnaround plan was to focus on pre-K to second grade, early literacy,” Mayo-Brown said. “Some students are entering knowing letters and letter sounds. Some are entering not yet knowing their alphabet.”

Given the large classroom sizes in the district’s early-elementary grades, that’s “a huge range of learning needs,” she said.

“Teachers have to be really skilled,” Mayo-Brown said.

Watson has a significant population of high-needs students, so the grant will be used to fund professional development around those learning needs, Mayo-Brown said. It will be used to implement two new positions, including a student support coordinator and a teacher technology position.

“This was the school redesign grant we applied for,” Mayo-Brown said. “Part of some of the work we want to do is very heavily based in technology, in blended-learning classrooms.”

She add that more than $30,000 of the award will be used toward purchasing Google Chromebooks that can be shared between classrooms.

The plan to be implemented at Watson was shaped, in large part, by what worked during turnaround efforts at the John Doran Community School.

The goal is to build each teacher's capacity so that when the money goes away, the educators who received that training will be able to pass it along to other educators.

“That’s what we really learned to do well at Doran. So we’re ahead of the game at Watson,” Mayo-Brown said.

According to DESE, the grant awards followed a comprehensive review process that included face-to-face interviews with district and school officials and “an assessment of their capacity to do the work necessary to improve student achievement over the next three years.”